I replied to OP but the question was pointed to a broader audience. Many on HN have _very_ negative feelings for Elon.
He's a pretty crazy guy, but I can think of few people/companies who are doing things that could have as big of an impact as Tesla, Starlink, and SpaceX.
I understand how you could have doubts with Tesla, but that how could those feelings not dissolve when seeing those reusable boosters land on their own? How many other organizations could do such a thing?
Considering they used "shower thoughts" to devalue the idea before factoring in Elons incredible track record (by company/capitalist metrics, no personal judgement required), I feel that you are being very generous towards OP.
Do you not consider SpaceX, Starlink, or Tesla to be successful? I don't mean profitable; I mean something that is pushing humanity forward?
I know that Tesla has a lot of negative press due to autopilot (and rightly so), but they are still a leader in both self-driving and electric vehicles.
If these companies push humanity forward? Honestly, I'm a bit on the fence about that. Tesla was disruptive in a sense that it made car manufacturers massively accelerate their EV plans. But do I see any continued impact? Not really.
I know that there are _plenty_ of other electric car manufacturers, and electric cars would eventually become popular, but Tesla making it happen _n_ years faster is an overwhelmingly good thing.
There's also a lot of potential (depending on who you ask) for autopilot, although I think it was a mistake to switch from lidar to pure computer vision. Time will tell.
